Archaeology of a Swan / Arqueología de Un Cisne - Paperback

by Juliana Rozo (Author), Vivian Arimany (Translator), Lina Meruane (Foreword by)

In her personal / poetic essay Arqueología de un cisne, Colombian writer Juliana Rozo traces two paths where beauty, trauma and violence intersect in works of art, family lore and historical events in Colombia. One of these paths goes historically through mythological, literary and artistic places in which the swan has had a relevance: starting with the artist Hilma Af Klint, the writer Marcel Proust, and the "Swan Lake," to Latin American musical references such as Luis Alberto Spinetta and a Colombian film, Cóndores no entierran todos los días by Francisco Norden. The other path immerses the reader in the intimate and poetic relationship that the writer finds in the figure of the swan and the porous boundary between beauty and violence.

Smol Books contributed the Spanish text and illustrations for the bilingual edition of Arqueología de un cisne. Smol Books is an independent publishing house that specializes in short stories by authors who break literary, thematic, formal, and linguistic boundaries in experimental fiction.

Author Biography

Juliana Rozo was born in Bogotá, Colombia and studied Art History at the University of Los Andes. Juliana has worked in different areas of the film sector, education and visual arts. She was also coordinator of the Mundo Común climate change project, and directed her first short film, "Destellos de Diana." She writes and explores the intersection between word, image, and sound.

Vivian Arimany is a Ph.D. student at Columbia University. Originally from Guatemala, Vivian is researching written and performative practices by women in Latin America and the Caribbean, with a focus on cultural production that portrays femicide. Her research questions the ethics of how gender-based violence is consumed by cultures outside of Latin America and how the experiences of feminine subjects are translated diasporically. Vivian is also a published translator and poet.